Thursday, January 22, 2015

Preparing for the worst with Dad' Army…

o/

With the gears slowly grinding forth on the local Bolt Action front, I've already had to give my fledgling Quar/Dad's Army concept a rethink. Naive fool that I am, I was hoping on Bolt Action being a Beer and Pretzels' Weird War II game. Unsurprisingly though, the others interested in the game are active 40k players and 40k's ROFLSTOMP the other guy mind-set has naturally been ported over to Bolt Action.

As such the local WWII military-industrial/inferiority complex is in full swing with most everyone planning to field all elite/veteran infantry along with the biggest and baddest tanks! In the face of that, my inexperienced troops, backed up by light weapons and a Matilda Mk I looked utterly pointless.

…sigh…

Having to switch to something 'more competitive' (grumble, grumble…) yet still sticking with the Dad's Army list allocations, I decided all of my units will be 'regular' quality rather than 'inexperienced', with only a few exceptions. The first of which being the Home Guard. I don't have any of Zombiesmith's Quar partisan minis to use as Home Guard yet, but when I do, well…they have to be inexperienced. No worries there as that just strikes me as a 'fluffy' anyways.

I was pleased to find that I had more of these guys than I thought!

Likewise the other exception will be the addition of my Commando section. Commandos don't have the option to be anything but veteran, so that settles that I guess. With the infantry tweaks out of the way, I'll next move onto the heavy (…snicker…) armor!

Yes, yes...MUCH better!

As I mentioned in my last post about it, I didn't care for the gun barrel as it was an oversized 40k bit. Additionally, the MASSIVE headlight started to annoy me as well. It struck me as the size of a searchlight, such as would be used for spotting enemy bombers on a nighttime raid. That and its placement between the tracks meant the first sizable rock or tree stump to pass between the treads would render it inoperable anyways.

So first up, I popped that off (at which point it flew halfway across the living room!), and using bitz and plasti-card, built out a sloped front glacis which lines up almost perfectly with the front of the hull-turret. For a bit of detail, I added a hatch as well, to access the transmission area. Considering that the engine is up in the hull-turret, I would imagine that the transmission would be a mechanic's nightmare of gears and widgets! For replacement headlights, I found a spare set from an apparently defunct SM Rhino.

For the important part: the gun, I replaced the old bit with a cannon from either an old Stuart light tank or Greyhound armored car, both of which had been victims of 40k's old VDR rules. To go with that, I added a co-axial MMG from a Quar armored car that I decided not to build when I realized how badly cast it was (big internal air bubbles…yikes! I should have given it a better look when I bought it a year or two back).

Initially I was going to use the tank (with its new weaponry) as a Light Tank Mk VI C, but after some research via the BA rulebook (and Wikipedia), I decided instead on the Vickers 6-ton light tank type B (the single turreted version with the 47mm cannon). Hence forth known as the: Quar 6-ton light tank. Whilst more far fragile than a Matilda Mk I, it doesn't move like molasses on a cold day, and is armed with a MMG and (most importantly) a light anti-tank gun!

Now, the odds of that light anti-tank gun punching a hole in my opponent's tanks aren't the greatest, but at least it has a decent chance of doing so. True, the super heavy (an in-game classification) tanks are still invulnerable to it, but they cost as much as my whole army so I'm not concerned with that. If anyone wants to field one of those, then they'll have to play against someone else's army.

So as you can see, my Quar/Dad's Army is begrudgingly pulling out their brass knuckles for the upcoming fight. However whether the above will be enough for them to hold their own or not remains to be seen…

Yes they deploy like normal, but you can take a glider for an alternative way to reserve them rather than outflank or normal board edge entry. I'm not going to glider route for now due to keeping it simple while I learn the game. Yes it's an option but nt one I'm looking at right now since it's 0-1.

About Me

I got into 40k when I was 19, and my state of personal finances has been all but destroyed ever since. These days I play primarily X-Wing and Bolt Action, but still dabble in 40k, WHFB, CBT, as well as various other odds and ends. I am also weening myself off of a long term addiction to the EVE Online MMO. Basically I'm just your standard issue gaming geek.

I am in no way making any money from this page (though by my description & various posts, you can see that GW is making a hellova lot off of me), and it should be said that I do NOT intend to add banner ads. (I find them intrusive & distracting). This page is purely to show my love of the hobby, which has consumed a fair portion of my life. Thank you for taking the time to read & consider these statements. Now please scroll up & read the fun stuff and not my amateur-ish attempts at 'legaleze'.